Gadhafi vows fight to finish

Posted: Wednesday, February 23, 2011

By Maggie Michaeland Sarah El Deeb

CAIRO - A defiant Moammar Gadhafi vowed to fight to his "last drop of blood" and roared at supporters to strike back against Libyan protesters to defend his embattled regime Tuesday, signaling an escalation in a crackdown that has thrown the capital into scenes of mayhem, wild shooting and bodies in the streets.

The speech by the Libyan leader - who shouted and pounded his fists on the podium - was an all-out call for his backers to impose control over the capital and take back other cities. After a week of upheaval, protesters backed by defecting army units have claimed control over almost the entire eastern half of Libya's 1,000-mile Mediterranean coast, including several oil-producing areas.

International alarm rose over the crisis, which sent oil prices soaring to the highest level in more than two years Tuesday. The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting, with Western diplomats pushing for it to demand a halt to Gadhafi's crackdown.

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel called Gadhafi's speech "very, very appalling," saying it "amounted to him declaring war on his own people." Libya's own deputy ambassador at the U.N., who now calls for Gadhafi's ouster, has urged the world body to enforce a no-fly zone over the country to protect protesters.

Gadhafi's retaliation has already been the harshest in the Arab world to the wave of anti-government protests sweeping several countries. Nearly 300 people have been killed, according to a partial count by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Tripoli has seen two nights of bloodshed: Residents have described a rampage by pro-Gadhafi militiamen - a mix of Libyans and foreign mercenaries - who shot on sight anyone found in the streets and opened fire from speeding vehicles at people watching from windows of their homes.

In a sign of the extent of the breakdown in Gadhafi's regime, one of his closest associates, Abdel Fattah Younis, his interior minister and commander of the powerful Thunderbolt commando brigade, announced in the now protester-held city of Benghazi that he was defecting and other armed forces should join the revolt.

"I gave up all my posts in response to the February 17 Revolution and my conviction that it has just demands," Younis, who was among the army officers who joined Gadhafi in his 1969 coup, told Al-Jazeera, referring to the date of the start of the protests.

The performance by Gadhafi on state TV Tuesday night went far beyond even the bizarre, volatile style he has been notorious for during nearly 42 years in power. Swathed in brown robes and a turban, wearing reflective sunglasses, he at times screamed, his voice breaking, and shook his fists - then switched to reading glasses to read from a green-covered law book, losing his train of thought before launching into a new round of shouting.

The crackdown so far has been waged chiefly by militias and so-called "revolutionary committees," made up of Libyans and foreign fighters, many hired from other African nations.

Many army units in the east appear to have sided with protesters, and other more institutional parts of his regime have weakened.

A string of ambassadors abroad have defected, as has the justice minister.

Protesters claim to control a string of cities, from the Egyptian border in the east - where guards at the crossing fled - to the city of Ajdabiya, about 450 miles further west along the Mediterranean coast, said Tawfiq al-Shahbi, a protest organizer in the eastern city of Tobruk.